PART 4:
Video
Intro
PART 4:
Video
Intro
| Introduction to the Composer |
| "Beethoven was the single most disruptive force in musical history." --Donald J. Grout |
| "Only the pure in heart can make a good soup." --Ludwig Van Beethoven |
I can't vouch entirely for the authenticity of that second statement (the one attributed to Beethoven), but the Donald Grout quote certainly hits the nail on the head in describing Beethoven's place in history!
Why "disruptive?"
First, because Beethoven had enormous social influence on his time--on how composers were treated, and on how patrons and commercial interests interacted with composers. Of course, his time was a very disruptive one (it included both the French and the American Revolutions), and saw a shifting of power from the aristocracy and church to the middle class. This was a shift that Beethoven and Haydn personally profited from, although Mozart never did.
Mozart and Haydn both grew up with the old system of employment in which noblemen and churches hired musicians as ordinary staff members. Mozart, who was offended at being treated like a servant, broke with his employer and went to Vienna to try freelance work. Despite early success, his popularity there declined however, and he died at the age of 35 in abject poverty.
Haydn fared better. He was hired to be the director of music at the court of the Hungarian Prince Anton Esterhazy. Haydn was required to wear a uniform, and to maintain the music library and collection of instruments--all this in addition to composing music on demand for the Prince! Toward the end of his life (and you remember that he had an extraordinary life span) he was able to break free of his employer and live as an independent artist. "How sweet a little liberty tastes..." he wrote during his later years in London. "The knowledge that I am no longer a hired servant repays me for all my trouble."
Mozart strove for economic and social freedom but failed to achieve it. Haydn got a "sweet taste" of it toward the end of his life. What about Beethoven?
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"Freedom above all!" he wrote.
Much of our present-day romantic vision of the artist--as a person of special
gifts and unique vision--was forged by this composer. Beethoven was almost
militant about the artistic, political, and social independence of the artist.
He turned the tables on artistic patrons (or "princely rabble" as he called
them), refusing to feel indebted to them for their financial assistance,
but making them instead feel honored to have his friendship.
"It is good to move among the aristocracy," he once observed, "but it is
first necessary to make them respect you." To him, art was ennobling, and
the artist was almost an oracle, a revealer of truth.
Left: A sculpture of Beethoven, made from a life mask of the composer. |
By and large Beethoven lived off the revenues from his published music, private lessons, and concert performances, a situation which, as we have seen, was still unusual in those days (and is virtually unheard of today, at least in the field of classical music).
 Immortal Beloved.
This movie is a rather colorful depiction of Beethoven's life.
The accuracy of the script in detailing Beethoven's life story has been
questioned by musicologists, but there is still much there to give the flavor
of his time and an idea of his personal struggle. |
Beethoven, then, was indeed disruptive to the social status quo. But in his music he was even more of a pioneer, overturning many musical roadblocks and stretching countless musical boundaries. Under his influence musical compositions grew longer and more complicated (Haydn's symphonies were often only around 15 minutes long--Beethoven's Eroica is about 45 minutes. Mozart's piano sonatas were usually a polite 15-20 minutes in length, but again, Beethoven built 50 minute structures in this genre.)
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A personal note
from LK~ Sharing some thoughts on Beethoven, and his heroic struggle to compose. . . Click here for video. |
 Recommended
Reading: Beethoven's battle with deafness, and his boldness
and courage in his music make for fascinating reading. For serious
Beethoven fans, Alexander Wheelock Thayer's Life of Beethoven gives
an absolutely exhaustive account of the composer's life from year to year
and sometimes even day to day.
The relatively new field of psychobiography, in which the author adds psychological analysis and viewpoint to the usual biographical information has yielded a biography of Beethoven by Maynard Solomon. Called simply Beethoven, it is published by MacMillan Publishing Co. |
| "You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's Seventh and go slow." --Oscar Levant (explaining his way out of a speeding ticket.) |
| "I love Beethoven, especially the poems." --Ringo Starr |
Beethoven's music is usually divided into three periods of creative production. The first period, usually referred to as the Imitative Period, is so called because of the influence of other composers, principally Haydn (whom Beethoven briefly studied with) and Clementi. Of course, a person as original as Beethoven never strictly imitated anyone, and even his youthful works bore the stamp of his very extroverted, vigorous personality. Here are some highlights from the works of this period, which dates from the 1790s to around 1802:
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Among the last works (or "transitional" works) of this period are the Piano Sonatas op. 26 and 31, the Third Piano Concerto, and the Kreutzer Sonata for violin and piano.
 "Kreutzer
Sonata." For the first creative period this is a great
choice. It was written for the black violinist George Bridgetower (1780-1860;
Bridgetower makes a cameo appearance in the movie Immortal Beloved.)
The opening measures of this sonata are worth the whole piece--wrenchingly
beautiful. There is also a witty scherzo movement with the violin and piano
playing slightly out of sync with each other. |
Around 1796 Beethoven began to have trouble with his hearing. His doctors
had prescribed all sorts of ghastly ear trumpets (see illustration below)
and medicines, but nothing worked. He was beginning to realize that he might
never find a cure and might actually end up losing his hearing
altogether. 
Beethoven was horribly ashamed of his affliction and kept it from his friends
and others by withdrawing and refusing to socialize. His isolation was
interpreted as a rebuff and he was pathetically characterized as a misanthrope.
By 1802 Beethoven's doctor, Professor Schmidt, recommended what one can only
surmise was a last-ditch effort to stave off the inevitable: he suggested
that the composer "rest his hearing" by taking a vacation in the countryside.
Following the doctors orders, Beethoven went to Heiligenstadt, a lovely rural
town outside Vienna, rented a small apartment, and began composing. Out of
this stay came one of his most lasting, glorious symphonies, the "Pastorale."
Listening to the joy and lightness of this symphony one would never suspect
that the composer was suffering at the time from complete emotional despair,
and had even contemplated suicide. He drew up his will, a document which
survives and which is now called The Heiligenstadt Testament. Here is an
excerpt~ if you can read it without crying I'd be very surprised:
O, you men who believe or declare that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly you wrong me! You do not know the secret cause behind the appearance. From childhood onwards my heart and my mind have tended towards a gentle benevolence. I have always been disposed to accomplish great deeds. Yet consider that for six years I have been suffering an incurable affliction, aggravated by imprudent physicians, year after year deceived by the hope of an improvement, finally forced to contemplate the prospect of a lasting illness, whose cure may take years or may even be impossible…
[I was] born with a fiery, impulsive temperament, sensible, even, to the distractions of social life. [Yet] I was compelled early in my life to isolate myself, to spend my life in solitude. Even if at times I wished to overcome all this, oh, how harshly I was driven back by the doubly grievous experience of my bad hearing; and yet I could not prevail upon myself to say to men: speak louder, shout, for I am deaf. Oh, how could I possibly admit to being defective in the very sense which should have been more highly developed in me than in other men, a sense which once I possessed in its most perfect form… Oh, I cannot do it.
Therefore you must forgive me if you should see me draw back when I would gladly mingle with you. My affliction is all the more painful to me because it leads to such misinterpretations of my conduct. Recreation in human society, refined conversation, mutual effusions of thought are denied to me. Almost quite alone, I may commit myself to social life only as far as the most urgent needs demand. I must live like an exile. When I do venture near some social gathering, I am seized with a burning terror, the fear that I may be placed in the dangerous position of having to reveal my condition…
This is only an excerpt of the Heiligenstadt Testament, and the rest of it is just as eloquent and heartrending. Ultimately, though, the document is inspiring, because toward the end Beethoven tells how he has resolved to fight his deafness and mustered the strength to continue composing. You can read the entire document in Emily Anderson's brief book of Beethoven's letters.
The music of this second period (called, the Heroic Period) is very highly charged, emotionally, and shows many bold experiments with form, and with harmonic resolutions and modulations. Beethoven was at the zenith of his popularity in Vienna and the period contains some of his most famous works, including:
|
| The
"Appassionata" Sonata is one of the chestnuts of the
piano literature and it is always popular with performers as well as audiences.
This sonata, and the famous Fifth Symphony, are emblematic of the
second period. |
The struggle could not go on, however. As he grew completely deaf Beethoven withdrew even further into his own private world of sound and emotion. His music began to take on a more abstract quality, which distanced him from the public. His radical experiments with harmonies (rather dissonant, especially for the time) were misunderstood, and more often than not "blamed" on his deafness. His deafness of course had nothing to do with his harmonic choices, dissonant or otherwise--Beethoven's infallible "inner ear" let him hear all of the sounds and orchestrations clearly in his mind. But total deafness had changed the character of his music and the former fighting spirit was now replaced with a certain resignation. For this reason, this last period is known as the Contemplative Period.
However restrained the emotional tone of these last period works, Beethoven continued to experiment with great courage and boldness and the catalog of his innovations was enormous:
The major works of this last period include:
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| Piano Sonata
Op. 111. A friend of mine always says that Beethoven's
last piano sonata sounds like his entrance into the pearly gates--and I must
admit that it does have a "celestial" quality to it, particularly at the
end. This sonata has only two movements and the second movement is slow.
When Beethoven sent it to his publishers they were understandably mystified
and thought there was some mistake. But when they asked him for the "last
movement" Beethoven sent them back an acidic reply letting them know in no
uncertain terms that the sonata was indeed complete! |
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